![]() ![]() It’s especially bad manners, being a woman. Trulove: Well, that’s been your modus operandi from day one, right? Stepping out of line? Schwartz: Well, I think anybody who kind of does something unusual or steps out of line, especially if you’re a woman, that seems to… They really seem still so unreformed, which is fascinating. Jatsch: And they just love Martha, when she goes there to lecture as this master hero, because she really established a new understanding and approach for landscape. Jatsch: I think we are in a bit of a fortunate position over there, because the companies that work in China are usually too big and corporate to really embrace landscape as a design opportunity, so we don’t have too much tough competition in this field in China. But you know, the Chinese goal is to do everything themselves. Trulove: There’s got to be an enormous amount of work and a lot of competition. Trulove: And the landscapes often are more traditional? Jatsch: A lot of developers are now actually using the landscape to create a public realm around them which has a higher quality, because the buildings themselves don’t have it. Schwartz: It’s because the local government officials are rewarded for how much they can get built, whether it is needed or not. Trulove: Well, you go through China, and you see all these endless rows of new condominiums that are black at night. By zoning law, there had to be a little tutu of green around it. There wasn’t any kind of top-down city planning where instead of just building high-rises, they said, “Let’s build a city.” It was just building high-rise towers. Schwartz: Unfortunately the quality of much of the built work is poor, and this thing about them wanting to build 400 cities in 20 years-unfortunately, it was very market-driven. I guess there are many opportunities for a landscape architect in China given the enormous amount of construction that is taking place. James Trulove: You now have offices in New York, London, and Shanghai. James Trulove, a former editor of LAM, who has known Schwartz for years, joined her and Jatsch, who is trained as an architect, for a conversation to find out what prompted the move and where Schwartz is directing her design and teaching now. Schwartz continues to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design-though her projects have taken her firm just about everywhere but the United States. Martha Schwartz, FASLA, and her business partner and husband, Markus Jatsch, last year relocated from London to Brooklyn, though the London office remains the headquarters of their firm, Martha Schwartz Partners. By James Trulove Photo by Sahar Coston-Hardy. ![]() Back from a dozen years in London, the designer is focusing on climate and the world she has made her home. ![]()
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